Harmony and freedom are two crucial concepts within religious life. Those concepts are not simply realized by the religious community as such, eventhough it takes a long process to achieve, we must maintain the sustainability by putting on siginificant efforts. Not only acted by religious groups, this struggle must be supported by the political groups as well. That is the outline of a presentation delivered by Simone Sinn at CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum, last November 24th 2010.

Simone, a researcher and a Ph.D. candidate from the Faculty of Protestant Theology, University of Münster, Germany, delivered a presentation titled “Religious Harmony and Religious Freedom: Theological and Societal Considerations on Two Prominent Concepts.” In the forum moderated by Vanny Suitela, a CRCS graduate, Simone said that the theme raised was based on her ongoing research.

In the study of Islamic philosophy, the name of Shihabuddin Suhrawardi is well-known for his illuminative philosophical concept. He was a controversial figure in his time that he tried to combine the concept of philosophy with mysticism. In Wednesday Forum CRCS-ICRS December 1st 2010, this figure was elaborated by John Compaglia, a student of Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, and a holder of the Luce Fellowship Program at UGM, presenting “The Context and Content of Suhrawardi’s Use of Cosmogonic and Cosmological Doctrines in His Philosophical Allegories”.

Kerukunan dan kebebasan adalah dua konsep krusial dalam isu kehidupan beragama. Dua hal ini tidak begitu saja disadari oleh umat beragama begitu saja, namun meski melalui proses yang panjang dua hal ini mesti diperjuangkan keberlangsungannya. Tidak saja oleh kelompok agama, perjuangan ini mesti disokong pula oleh kelompok politik. Demikian garis besar presentasi yang diuraikan oleh Simone Sinn dalam Wednesday Forum CRCS-ICRS pada tanggal 24 November 2010 lalu.

Simone, peneliti dan kandidat Ph.D. Fakultas Teologi Protestan, Universitas Münster, Jerman, menyampaikan presentasi dengan judul “Religious Harmony and Religious Freedom: Theological and Societal Considerations on two Prominent Concepts”. Dalam forum yang dimoderatori Vanny Suitela, alumni CRCS UGM, Sinn meyampaikan bahwa tema yang ia angkat berdasar pada sebuah riset yang sedang ia lakukan.

Dalam kajian Filsafat Islam, nama Shihabuddin Suhrawardi masyhur dengan konsep filsafat iluminasinya. Ia adalah tokoh kontroversial di masanya. Ia berusaha menggabungkan konsep filsafat dengan mistisisme. Tokoh inilah yang dalam Wednesday Forum CRCS-ICRS tanggal 01 Desember 2010 lalu dikupas oleh John Compaglia, mahasiswa Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley yang mengikuti program Luce Fellowship di UGM, dalam presentasinya “The Context and Content of Suhrawardi’s Use of Cosmogonic and Cosmological Doctrines in His Philosophical Allegories”.

Since long ago gender relations have been problematized by many scholars in the global north as well as the global south seen from many fields of study such as sociology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, and so on. The concept of masculinities is inside this debate. Along with the debates about gender relations and the form of masculinities, the relations of the global south and the global north have shaped various practices and forms.

The forms of relations occur as results of the various relations of both the global south and the global north. To say one of the examples is colonial encounter between the occupier and the occupied as said by Franz Fanon, an Algerian-birth France philosopher: “Every contact between the occupied and the occupier is falsehood”. This falsehood emerged in the form of articulating the concept of masculinities. Beyond that, the theorists that engage with the issues are merely dominated by the theorists from the global north using their own resources even in analyzing those issues in the global south. This fact creates the epistemic imbalance toward the studies aimed at concerning the issues of gender relations in the global south.

Last July 5-23, 2010, a few students, a staff, and a lecturer of CRCS UGM were invited to participate in the “Vienna International Christian-Islamic Summer University” (VICISU) 2010 in the University of Vienna, Austria, in cooperation with the Austrian Ministry of Research and Science. The CRCS was represented by Dian Maya Safitri, Yuyun Sri Wahjuni, Sholahudin, Mohammad Rokib, Maria Ingrid Nabuboga, and Dr. Fatimah Husein.

For the November 3, 2010 edition of Wednesday Forum, two of them, Yuyun Sri Wahyu and Mohammad Rokib had the opportunity to share their experience.